Democratic Continuity or Regression?

This article deals with the level of democracy in Croatia after EU accession. The first part presents key events, processes, and actors which have shaped the trajectory of democratic development. The second part discusses the Croatian case in the context of current research on democratic backsliding. The third part tests the idea about democratic backsliding in Croatia by running regression models with democracy indices derived from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset. The findings challenge the idea of democratic backsliding in Croatia. The models do not show a clear association of decreased democracy scores after EU accession but point to a stronger role of the pre-accession period in increasing levels of democracy in Croatia. The models also highlight the explanatory role of executive and public sector corruption regarding democracy levels in Croatia. Instead of speaking of democratic backsliding, the Croatian case can be better described as one experiencing democratic stagnation.

• Publication year

  2023

• Venue

  Southeastern Europe

• Publication date

  2023-12-28

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.30965/18763332-47020002
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Post-Yugoslav States Thirty Years after 1991: Unfinished Businesses of a Fivefold Transition

  2022cited by this paper
• Patterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies: a sequence analysis perspective

  2022cited by this paper
• From the Varieties of Democracy to the defense of liberal democracy: V-Dem and the reconstitution of liberal hegemony under threat

  2022cited by this paper
• Condoning postwar corruption: how legacies of war prevent democratic accountability in contemporary Southeast Europe

  2021cited by this paper
• When EU Political Convergence Fails in New Member States: Corporate and Party State Capture in Croatia and the Czech Republic

  2021cited by this paper
• Savjetovanje s javnošću u pripremi propisa u Hrvatskoj

  2020cited by this paper
• Chapter 1: The Search for Meaning and Identity: Nation- and State-Building in the Western Balkans

  2020cited by this paper
• From Post-Communism to Post-Democracy

  2020cited by this paper
• Structural weaknesses and the role of the dominant political party: democratic backsliding in Croatia since EU accession

  2020cited by this paper
• Authoritarian footprints in Central and Eastern Europe

  2019cited by this paper
• Democracy in Croatia: From stagnant 1990s to rapid change 2000–2011

  2019cited by this paper
• After competitive authoritarianism hybrid regime legacies and the quality of democracy in Croatia

  2019cited by this paper
• Patterns of competitive authoritarianism in the Western Balkans

  2018cited by this paper
• Rethinking “democratic backsliding” in Central and Eastern Europe – looking beyond Hungary and Poland

  2018cited by this paper
• A painful break or agony without end? The stateness problem and its influence on democratization in Croatia and Serbia

  2017cited by this paper
• The political economy of local government in Croatia: winning coalitions, corruption, and taxes

  2017cited by this paper
• Changes in the system of government and consolidation of democracy: a comparison of the role of president in Croatia and Slovakia

  2016cited by this paper
• The Hollowing and Backsliding of Democracy in East Central Europe

  2015cited by this paper
• The Political Economy of State Capture in Central Europe

  2014cited by this paper
• The international dimensions of democratization in Slovakia and Croatia

  2013cited by this paper
• Two decades of semi-presidentialism: issues of intra-executive conflict in Central and Eastern Europe 1991–2011

  2013cited by this paper
• Post-accession conditionality – translating benchmarks into political pressure?

  2013cited by this paper
• Anti-corruption Policy in Croatia: Benchmark for EU Accession

  2011cited by this paper
• Croatia and Serbia since 1991: An Assessment of Their Similarities and Differences

  2011cited by this paper
• Democratization, State-building and War: The Cases of Serbia and Croatia

  2008cited by this paper
• Political parties and the state in post-communist Europe: The nature of symbiosis

  2006cited by this paper
• Croatia and the European Union: a long delayed journey

  2006cited by this paper
• Embedded and defective democracies

  2004cited by this paper
• Croatia

  2001cited by this paper
• Political Development in Croatia 1990-2000: Fast Transition – Postponed Consolidation

  2000cited by this paper
• The consolidation of post‐autocratic democracies: A multi‐level model

  1998cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.